Planned Change in an Organized Anarchy: Support for a Postmodernist Perspective

Presents data from a study of planned organizational redesign to challenge several assumptions underlying theories of planned change. Describes and analyses the experience at Worldwide Action for Development, an international organization with the characteristics of an organized anarchy, to establish a divisional structure based on the location of its programme offices. This case shows how directed change can evolve over the course of implementation and result in unanticipated outcomes. Considers the implications for how planned change can be understood and implemented when circumstances undermine the validity of modernist assumptions about how or why organizations change.